


Monstrous

by skeletondance



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Community: snkkink, M/M, Mind Control, Non-Consensual, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:41:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletondance/pseuds/skeletondance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertholdt and Reiner have been captured. Eren has the power to control the shifters and force them to act against their will. He uses his ability to exact revenge. Set after chapter 50 of the manga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monstrous

**Author's Note:**

> _(Dec 2013)_ I'm in the process of re-drafting this fic. I've made some cuts to scenes where I felt the pacing was suffering and rearranged the chronology. The first draft ran way too long and felt too bogged down, so I wanted to cut anything inessential.

[Present Day]

"Where have you been? Eren? Eren, what's happened?" 

Armin was trying to catch a hold of him but Eren kept pulling free, turning in place, walking a few steps one way, stopping and turning back. He was breathing harshly, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. His knee was throbbing from when he'd fallen—back in the forest—running blindly through the black trees—

"Eren, look at me!" Armin was gripping him by the arms and Eren finally met his eye. "Where are they?"

"What?"

"Bertholdt and Reiner." Armin gave him a slight shake. "Where did they go? Have they escaped?"

"No. No, they—I—" Eren drew away, out of Armin's hold, he put his hand out shakily and caught the cold rough stone of the wall and he put his back to it, leant there panting. He dropped his head back and shut his eyes. He swallowed and tried to catch his breath, his chest burning.

"I have to tell them you're here," Armin said. "They're sending out a search party—"

"Don't!" Eren jerked forward and grabbed hard hold of Armin's hand.

"What's that?" Armin pointed at the wetness down the front of Eren's shirt.

In the courtyard there were voices shouting, and people running, torchlight flickering in the dark.

No one could see them there in the shadowy passage.

"Eren!" Armin said sharply. He was staring at Eren wide-eyed.

Eren glanced down at his shirt, sticking unpleasantly damp to his chest, and he dimly became aware of the sour smell that was on him.

"I was…sick," he said.

"Where are Bertholdt and Reiner?"

"Where?" Eren repeated stupidly. "They're—in the…" He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I left them out there."

"Where? In the woods?"

Eren dropped his shoulders back against the wall. "Yes." He nodded. "Yeah."

"What did you do?" Armin said. The tone in his voice had changed. 

Eren wiped his mouth again.

"Eren, what did you do?"

Eren saw Armin still had on his nightshirt under his jacket.

"Nothing," Eren said.

"Whatever's happened, just tell me."

"Nothing's happened. It's fine. We just—we got lost. You know. I couldn't find my way back. That's all."

Footsteps thumped close by and a couple of Scouts passed in front of the arches, their gear clanking as they ran. 

Eren pressed himself back into the cold stone.

"You need to get them back here," Armin said. "Everyone thinks they've got away."

"Okay."

"We need to find Erwin right now before this gets out of hand."

"Yeah."

"Come on." Armin took Eren's arm.

"Hey, Armin." Eren reached out, caught the collar of Armin's jacket. "Someone had to do something, didn't they." He looked desperately into Armin's face. "It's like—like nobody gives a shit. They were just letting them get away with it."

Armin's hand was on Eren's, he was prying Eren's fingers loose.

"Come on. We have to go now, Eren."

"But you understand." Eren pulled his friend closer, clutching at him, trying to see better the look in his eyes in the darkness. "You do, don't you?"

*

[One Month Ago]

The cell was smaller than the one they'd kept Eren in, all those weeks ago, what felt more like years ago, when he'd lifted the boulder for Trost.

The ceiling was steeply sloped on one side. The cramped space had been roughly sectioned in half by a row of thick iron bars sunk deep into the rock foundation, ceiling to floor.

There was a musty smell of fever and old blood, and under that a faint tang of piss.

Reiner was sitting on a cot in the cell, his elbows braced on his knees, his hands held loosely together in front of him.

The other three had stepped past Eren into the room, but Eren found himself frozen in the doorway, rooted to the spot.

The way Reiner was just sitting there—directly facing the doorway, staring, staring right at Eren, his look bold and unwavering.

"Jaeger," Levi said.

Eren couldn't break his gaze away, but he came slowly over the threshold and into the room.

"You're up," Hanji was saying. "That's good. Your hand is looking better."

"Why isn't he restrained?" Saxer asked. Saxer was Stationary Guard, come to see the state of things and compile a report.

"Well, yesterday he had no hand," Hanji said, taking a notepad out of her pocket.

They continued to speak, but their voices became just noise. Eren could feel the old familiar rage that was always there, in his chest, and right now it felt molten, white-hot, as he and Reiner stayed locked together in their stare.

"—if that's how you'd like to do it?" Hanji was suddenly standing right in front of Eren, breaking the line of his gaze.

"He hasn't been listening to a word," Levi said. He was leaning back against the wall, arms folded, his boot hitched up against the stone.

"My point is just that if he's refused to speak up until now, do we even know this will do any good?" Saxer said. "And is it worth risking the control we have at the moment?"

"Do you want to try this still?" Hanji said, waiting for Eren to meet her eye.

"Of course." Eren stepped around her and approached the bars, taking hold of a bar in each hand. 

Reiner was now looking fixedly at the opposite wall of his cell.

"He won't speak?" Eren said.

Hanji answered, "Not since he woke up."

"That's not like you, Reiner." Eren's hold on the bars tightened. "Don't you want to tell us…about the duty of a soldier?"

Reiner's jaw clenched for a moment, and then eased, and otherwise he remained motionless.

"Ask him his name," Levi said.

"His name?" Eren repeated. A sort of revulsion swept over him. "Is 'Reiner Braun' not your real name?"

Reiner turned his head aside, disregarding Eren completely.

"What's your name?" Eren said, his voice rising, and he was thinking about the forest, thinking about waking up to the sight of Reiner and Bertholdt, blurry silhouettes against the clear sky, the tingling ache of the stumps of his arms, the fury that had seized him in that instant as everything rushed back—as he realised they'd beaten him, made him helpless again—

" _Tell us your name!_ " Eren roared, and it was like his rage was coming off him in waves of heat that couldn't be seen, directed at Reiner sat on the cot, and that was how Eren pictured it as he clung onto the cell bars—ripples of heat breaking over Reiner's skin, cracking and peeling the flesh with the heat of it.

It took Eren a moment to realise Reiner had slumped forward, his head between his knees, his arms cradling his head, and he was making a noise, strange and ragged in the back of his throat, forced out between gritted teeth. 

Dimly Eren was aware of Hanji standing next to him.

And then Reiner spoke, with his face still hidden, with his voice choked and torn—

"Reiner…Braun."

"Is that a lie?" Eren said. 

Hanji had hold of his arm, like she was about to intervene.

"No," Reiner answered roughly, his voice muffled against his trousers.

There was quiet for a moment, just Reiner's uneven breathing.

Hanji let go of Eren's arm. She had her notebook with her still, and she flipped it open and very quickly began to write.

"Get up," Eren said.

Reiner stayed as he was, curled over his knees.

Eren smacked his hands against the bars, making the metal and the palms of his hands hum. "I said _get up!_ "

Reiner dropped his arms clumsily and gripped the sides of the cot and pushed himself to his feet, pitching forward unsteadily like a drunk. He threw his hand out to steady himself against the slope of the ceiling.

" _Come here_."

Reiner grunted, his hand sliding down the wall, his shoulder dropping strangely as he took a step forward. His body, which had always been strong and moved with a deft athleticism, was now ungainly. He moved to take a second step, his shoulders going back, the top and lower parts of his body at odds with one another.

Reiner's head stayed bent as he laboured forward. It was a strange thing to watch, given his height and powerful build, the obvious strength of his limbs. His faltering movements made him look like an infant trying to walk.

He reached the cell bars, coming to a stop directly in front of Eren. He seized hold of the bars and leant his weight into his grip.

Eren shifted closer, so there was barely a foot of space between them.

"You do what I tell you from now on, isn't that right?" Eren said quietly.

Reiner slowly lifted his head and met Eren's gaze. The burning look in his eyes was enough to make Eren snap.

" _Why did you do it?_ You killed them!" 

"Eren—"

"They weren't soldiers—they were civilians!" Eren pressed closer, bristling with rage. "There were families. Children. They were eaten alive because of _you._ You fucking butchered them! You let them in! Why?"

Reiner had tucked his chin down, he was leaning away from Eren, seemed to be trying to step back, but it was like his own fingers curled around the bars were stopping him, and so he just hung there breathing hard.

Eren lunged, shoving his arms through the bars, grabbing at Reiner by the front of his shirt, hauling at him, trying to drag him bodily closer to the bars.

" _Answer me!_ "

Reiner resisted him, the muscle standing out on his arms as he braced them against Eren's pull. 

A dribble of dark red blotted Reiner's shirtfront.

"Eren, stop!" Hanji shouted.

A sharp jab hit Eren in the kidney, a grip at Eren's elbow, his arm twisted up behind his back, the work of half a second and Eren was helpless, arching back with a cry into the brutal grip that held him from behind.

"When Hanji tells you to stop," Levi said, "you stop immediately."

He walked Eren backwards and then released his wrist and Eren stumbled away from him, panting.

"He was about to answer!"

"Something's wrong," Hanji said.

Eren looked over and saw Reiner was now down on one knee, holding his head.

The front of his shirt was spattered red with wet blood. He tipped his head back and there was blood all on his mouth and down his chin, streaming from his nose.

"Did you strike him?" Captain Saxer said in alarm. 

"No."

"Why is his nose bleeding?"

"Get some of my men in here," Hanji said, undoing a loop of keys on her belt.

Captain Saxer rushed to the door and gave the order to one of the guards outside.

"How are we doing, Mister Braun?" Hanji squatted down on her heels, peering in through the bars at Reiner. "Are you in pain?"

"He's putting it on so he doesn't have to answer the question," Eren said, still shaking slightly with anger.

"We're going to need to restrain him," Hanji said.

"Why?" Eren was fast losing patience.

"We need to get inside with him and check him for injury."

"He's not going to do anything. He can't hurt anyone anymore." Eren started forward. A quiet noise of warning from Levi made him pause. 

"Just look." Eren held up his hand.

_Lie back._

He didn't speak the words out loud, he formed them silently in his mind, not really sure if his instincts were correct, but with all of his anger and frustration focused on Reiner's kneeling figure, the impulse to push further was too strong to resist.

Reiner was breathing wetly through his mouth, watching Eren from under his brows. Eren thought he could see in his face the instant when the command took a hold of him.

Reiner set his hand on the ground, drew his leg out from under him, sank back so that he was sitting. He stayed like that for a couple of seconds, then with a grimace, he got his hands behind him and reclined until he was resting back on his elbows, then finally he lay flat on his back.

Hanji jerked her head around to stare at Eren with large eyes.

"Are you making him do that?"

Eren dropped his hand to his side.

"Now can we get back to questioning him?"

"How did you do that?" Hanji demanded.

The sound of thumping boots signaled the arrival of Hanji's team. Two of them burst through the door with more coming behind.

"It's alright! It's alright," Hanji said, straightening up. "There's no crisis. We just need to check on him."

More members of the science staff were in the passage, craning to try and get a look inside, and the tiny room was soon feeling over-crowded.

"This is stupid," Eren muttered.

"And if you accidentally killed him?" Levi said, standing at Eren's side.

His irritation getting the better of him, Eren blew a sharp puff of air through his teeth. He glanced down to see if Levi took it as disrespect, but in profile, the man's face was unreadable.

"There are two of them, aren't there?" Eren said.

"Careful," Levi said, looking a bit bored as he surveyed Hanji's people bustling about.

"I don't want to kill him, sir," Eren said quickly. "Of course we need him for the information. But if he has to bleed for us to get it, why can't we let him bleed?"

"Right!" Hanji called, waving her hand for attention. "We're suspending the session."

"Better too many precautions…" Levi murmured.

*

"Nothing about where they came from? Their objective?"

Eren lifted his hands cupped with water and splashed his face, scrubbing roughly, raking the wetness up through his hair.

"Nothing," he spat out. He took up the sponge from the basin and started cleaning round the back of his neck. "If they'd given me more time, I'd have had him. They let me ask one question and that was it." He dunked the sponge in the water and wrung it out again, wiping down his arms.

Armin, sitting on a bench opposite the large stone basin, watched the unsettled shapes of the water with a frown, his eyes remote, the look on his face the same one he always wore when contemplating a puzzle.

"It's strange," he said, speaking carefully, "that he obeyed you in every other regard up til that question..."

"We could have had the answers by now," Eren said, leaning over and gathering more water in his hands. "The titans. The walls. Me—and them. And instead—" He splashed his face, passed his hand down his brow and the bridge of his nose. "they get another peaceful night with their secrets."

"Do you remember the end of the battle?" Armin said.

Eren blew at the water that was on his lips and straightened up, squinting at his friend. "What kind of question is that?"

"When Reiner abandoned the armoured titan form. You saw how him and Bertholdt were by the time we got them out of there. They were close to torn to pieces."

"A lot of people _were_ torn to pieces," Eren said sharply.

_Hannes—the titan's fingers around his torso almost curious, pulling, leering grin terrible as its fingers kept pulling—_

Eren hunched down and put his face in the water, then submerging most of his head, his eyes squeezed tight shut, speckled beat of blood in his eyelids. He lifted out, blowing out his cheeks.

"Who gives a shit about Reiner's bloody nose." 

He reached for the cloth to dry himself.

"Your bodies can heal. The mind is something different," Armin said. "You can't think about this like it's a door you have to break in order to get into a room."

Eren turned his back, patting himself dry, his voice loud in the large, empty communal washroom.

"If I can control all of the titans outside the walls, I don't even know why we're wasting time with these two assholes. We can get answers on our own."

"But you lost control of the swarm of titans right after the battle."

Eren said nothing, wiping himself down, his eyes on the stone tiles.

"Your powers need to be tested so we can be sure they're reliable," Armin said.

Eren pulled his tunic on over his head, careless of his hair still running with water. He balled up the wet cloth and headed for the doorway.

"Eren."

"I'm tired," he said, not looking back. "Let's go."

*

[One Year Ago]

The tension went suddenly out of the rope and Eren and Nack were flung backwards.

Eren had tied himself by his belt to the tree and that was the only thing that kept him from falling as he lost his footing on the slippery bark.

"Fuck," Nack gasped, scrambling over to the edge of the ravine. "Oh, fuck. Thomas!"

Eren got his arm over the tree trunk and pulled himself up. He straddled the trunk and started reeling up the rope fast. It came up only half its length, its end a frayed stump.

"Shit," he hissed, leaning back to look down into the dark, narrow gape of the ravine below.

"Thomas, can you hear me?" Nack hollered. "Answer if you can hear!"

There was a rumble from overhead. The daylight was dying, thunderheads from the east that had looked to be a ways off seemed much, much nearer now.

Eren wrapped the rope in a hurried coil over and under arm and then crawled back with it along the tree trunk to solid ground.

"I'll go down," he said, fumbling with numb fingers, working loose the knots of the rope. "You're going to have to lower me."

Nack raked his fingers through his hair despairingly. "It's not going to be long enough to reach the bottom. What if he's gone into the river?"

Eren stopped, the grim thought wiping his mind blank for a moment. He stared stupidly down at his own hands.

"What are we going to do?" Nack said. "For fuck's sake. I mean is he going to wash up on the bank further down somewhere? There's a promontory, we might be able to see—"

"He's just landed on a ledge down there," Eren said, resuming his work, snapping himself out of it.

"He'd have shouted up to us." Nack bent down and started stuffing gear frantically back into his pack. "We have to go and look."

"If he's in the water we won't be able to do anything from there. It's quicker if I just go down and find out either way. At least I can go in after him—"

"Go in after him? You saw that current." Nack straightened up, the wind snatching at his field jacket. He threw his pack over his shoulder. "I'm going up the rise."

"I'm telling you, there's no damn point—"

"What was that?" Nack said suddenly, spinning around to look up at the dark bank of trees that crowded the incline behind where they stood. 

They were both silent, listening, then sure enough, there came a call again, a male voice hailing them from above in the trees.

"Down here!" Nack shouted.

A figure appeared coming out from the trees, picking a path down through the rocks and ferns.

"That's Reiner," Nack said, stunned. "Reiner! Watch how you go!" He gestured to the black crack in the earth, still visible in the diming light.

Reiner slid down the last part of the bank, his heavy boots crunching through the ferns. His face was slick with drizzle, his hair plastered flat to his skull.

"What are you two doing? Where's the rest of your team?" he said, taking in the rope in Eren's hands, the fallen tree across the ravine, their supplies spread haphazardly on the ground around them. 

"We lost Thomas down there," Nack said in a rush, "he was going downhill and caught his foot in a rabbit hole or something and broke it we think, he couldn't walk, he couldn't climb, we tried lifting him—there's a river right under here—we thought it'd be okay, the rocks coming up didn't look so jagged, but…" He glanced helplessly at Eren.

Eren held up the frayed end and Reiner took it in his hand and considered it in silence.

"It cut on one of the rocks," Nack finished weakly.

The noise of thunder came again, a tumbling boom, long and angry.

"He's down there somewhere, he might have fallen in the river for all we know," Nack said, his voice cracking as he shouted to be heard. "If he's been carried off—oh god, if he's been—"

"Alright," Reiner said. "My team's up in the woods. The camp's not half a mile west. We should have a signal flare. Go while there's still light to see."

Nack blinked at him in disbelief. "R-Really?"

"Go," Reiner said.

Nack set off up the incline.

Reiner unfastened the clasp of his pack and slung it down from his shoulder. 

"I have a rope," he said, working open the buttons of his field jacket, which like Eren's, was pretty well sodden and too stiff to move easily in. 

Eren wanted to be the one to go down, but Reiner wasn't hearing it.

"Can you see enough?" Eren said, crouched at the edge of the ravine, the rain coming down in earnest now, spattering fat cold drops on the back of his neck, the grey daylight diminishing. 

"It'll be fine," Reiner said.

Eren watched the older boy, his shoulders and his head, as he lowered himself on the rope down into the black tear in the rock.

*

[Three Weeks Ago]

Reiner sat holding his nose with the handkerchief Hanji had given him wadded up bloody in his hand.

The cell was quiet except for the soft rustle of pages as Hanji thumbed slowly through her notebook, pausing now and then, tilting her head to read, her pencil between her teeth.

"I want to see Bertholdt," Reiner said, breaking the long silence.

"Hey…" Eren kept his voice low. He stayed where he was, leaning in the doorway. "Maybe you should shut the fuck up with the demands."

Reiner wiped at the blood crusted around his nostrils. He leaned and spat.

"It is interesting," Hanji said, emerging from her study. She perched her spectacles on her forehead, rubbed her eyes, replaced her spectacles, her motions automatic and absent-minded. She finally stilled, her notebook pressed between the palms of her hands in a kind of prayerful pose. "There's definitely a pattern."

"A pattern like every time we ask about anything actually important, the asshole refuses to answer?" Eren said.

"Refuses to answer, or is rendered physically incapable of answering?" Hanji said.

"Either way. It's the same result. Do you think now they'll torture him? They'd be better starting with Bertholdt—"

"Excuse me, leader?" a voice said from behind Eren. One of Hanji's men. 

"Our work isn't done yet," Hanji said, slapping her notebook against her thigh as she got up. Eren moved aside to let her out into the passage.

"Bertholdt can't tell you anything more than I have," Reiner said. "Can't you see?" He stopped. Passed his hand across his brow.

Eren came up to the bars.

"You were really good, you know," he said. "I can see why they sent you."

Reiner looked up at him sharply, as if caught off-guard.

"There must have been a lot of times when you really wanted to laugh at us, but you couldn't, right?" Eren felt his own lips stretch into a kind of smile. "Like when you were pretending to be so shitty at hand-to-hand combat, letting me think you didn't know anything. Feeding me all that crap. And do you remember that time—we all sat around talking about—" Eren laughed and it came out weird, wobbly, and Reiner was staring at him with an uncanny frozen expression "about how nobody was going to let any one of us die because we had the luckiest squad number. Do you remember? All that stupid shit? You must have found it pretty funny. 

"And all these people you wanted to wipe out, throwing themselves in front of you. Throwing their lives away thinking they had a duty to you. Like you were just a trainee like the rest of us. No one doubted you, ever, not for a second. We all trusted you with our lives. I bet you got a real kick out of that. Even right to the end, I didn't believe it. I actually—" Eren drew in a sharp breath, his ribcage too tight, a giddy feeling lurching up in him, like he might start laughing again "I actually looked up to you. I thought, if anyone can keep it together, even in the worst circumstances, if anyone can hold onto their better parts, use their strength to protect people weaker—it's Reiner. But the whole—the whole time, to you it was just a big fucking joke—"

"No."

Reiner got to his feet, tried to move in the tiny cell, but there was nowhere to go. He turned one way and then the other, jarring his elbow against the wall. His big, restless presence in that cramped space gave him the appearance of a bear trying to rear up.

"That's not—how it was."

Reiner clasped his hand over his forearm and he stood holding his arm across his chest.

"To do what you three did…you'd have to have no honor whatsoever."

Reiner was rubbing the flesh of his forearm roughly with his hand, kneading and squeezing the muscle in a way that looked painful.

" _Tell me the truth about this world,_ " Eren said. " _Tell me why we can become titans._ "

Reiner made a low noise and sank back against the wall. He folded forward slowly, his hands gripping above his knees and his head hung down. Another guttural sound came from between his clenched teeth.

" _Open your mouth and speak!_ " Eren shouted, wringing the bars between his hands.

Reiner parted his jaws and a string of spit stretched from his mouth to the floor. His fingers were gripping fiercely at his trousers and he was sliding lower down the wall. He made a wet, choked noise, his jaws working like he was about to speak, but no word came out of him.

Blood dribbled onto the dark flagstone between his feet just as Hanji returned.

She pulled Eren away from the bars. 

"Hey! We agreed you wouldn't try anything without me here. What did you do?"

"Nothing. Just the same as we've been doing all morning."

Reiner stayed slumped against the wall, the tension gone out of his body, his breath rattling out of him, shoulders heaving, as if he'd been held underwater for too long. He had his hand cupped to his nose, the blood was running down his arm and dripping.

"He's mocking us," Eren said.

"Annie," Reiner said, his voice rough and phlegmy. He lifted his head, half his face hidden behind his hand. His eyes found Hanji's. "Did you…tell Bertholdt?"

Hanji pulled a clean handkerchief out of her trouser pocket and she held it between the bars.

"He's been told no harm came to her," she said. "However, the fever's confusing him."

Reiner didn't come to take the handkerchief. He stayed where he was. He kept his eyes fixed on Hanji.

"He's not…" Reiner swallowed thickly, clearing his throat. "He's not letting himself heal."

"What do you mean?"

"Let me see him."

"You're not getting what you want," Eren said, "so stop asking."

"Then let him see her," Reiner said.

"How about I let you rip your own eyes out of your head?" Eren snarled.

"Eren." Hanji jerked her chin towards the door. 

Eren left the cell without another word. The guards stationed in the dark passage outside looked quickly at him and then away. Hanji came out a moment later, pulling the cell door shut behind her. She started off down the passage, trusting Eren to fall in with her.

"It's true Bertholdt hasn't been healing, certainly not at the rate Reiner has," she said quietly. "I don't know if his health can afford to take another downwards swing…"

"You aren't taking Reiner seriously?" Eren said in disbelief.

Hanji glanced back at him distractedly, her brow creased in a frown.

"Bertholdt has been worrying me."

*

The scout held up the torch to the smooth surface of the crystal as the stretcher was lowered to the ground. 

There were eight or so scouts present, stood round in a semi-circle, their faces shadowy, hands resting at their belts, loose but ready.

Hanji stepped lightly over the stretcher, into the torchlight. She put her hand out and patted at the block of crystal.

"You see? Impenetrable."

The dark figure swaddled on the stretcher didn't stir. 

Eren had seen them piling the clean blankets on in the cell, but already there was a stink of gangrene in the air.

"Bring more light," Hanji said. "Bring it closer so he can see." 

She crouched down and took a corner of a blanket and tucked it back and then she leaned over Bertholdt. Eren could see from where he was standing that the boy's long face was bone-white and shining with sweat.

"Look up there. Can you see her?" Hanji gestured to the crystal as more torches were brought and the scene was lit in flickering light and the uneven edges of the stone glittered.

The face of the girl frozen inside seemed untroubled. Her eyes were closed. She had no thoughts, no concerns. Her hair at the back of her head was swept up loose as if buffeted by a sudden wind, and haloed as it was around her face, it leant her a seeming softness which she'd never been known for during her time with the 104th.

Hanji looked towards Eren, her mouth turned down in dismay. Eren went to her side.

"He's worse today," she said in an undertone. "If he could sit up…"

"Do you want me to make him?" 

"No! No." Hanji shifted out of her crouch, going onto one knee, her hand settling on top of the blankets. "His body's in bad shape. I don't want him doing anything big."

Eren stared blankly down at the head resting only a short distance from the toe of his boot.

Bertholdt's eyes seemed sunken, glassy, staring back at him. There was no colour in his lips. His hair was lank with sweat. The smell of rotting flesh was much more pungent standing this close.

Bertholdt had always been good at mending clothing. He'd spent an evening once sitting with Connie showing him a better way to patch his shirt where it had worn out at the elbow. He'd spoken in his usual quiet way, indicating a place on the fabric spread on the table between them with a careful circular motion of his finger, glancing up at Connie as he spoke to see that he understood.

"He just needs to look up," Hanji said, drawing Eren back to the present.

"Fine."

He raised his hand.

He could feel the eyes of the scouts all on him.

_Look._

Bertholdt's dark eyes stared from the hollows of their sockets. 

With a flicker, his gaze grew focused. He looked at Eren. He looked past him. His skull tilted, his shoulders struggling to turn as well, and Hanji made an anxious noise, but she lent away at the same moment as Eren stepped back, so they were not blocking the view, and Bertholdt was then looking at the oval of crystal that stood against the wall, propped up by slabs of wood and bound in heavy chains.

"Can you see, Bertholdt?" Hanji said. "It's Annie."

Bertholdt's face turned stricken. His brows drew together. His eyes roved back and forth across the glinting surface of the crystal shell that held Annie suspended.

"She protected herself the moment she was captured. She was never tortured." 

Bertholdt shut his eyes tightly. His lips turned down at the sides. From under the blankets he drew up his arm. His hand was all bandaged up, it looked like he had none of his fingers. He could only put the bound-up hand across his eyes as his shoulders started to shake. 

*

Ymir's voice came into Eren's mind, speaking in lazily derisive tones— _"…if you keep saying childish things…if you make such small fry your enemy…"_

"We're not learning anything from them," Eren said.

"Lieutenant Zoë's reports disagree," Erwin said mildly. "Let me ask you this. Do you believe you could force these two to transform? And if so, could you still control them in their titan forms?"

Eren frowned. "I hadn't thought about it, sir."

"Do you find it distasteful to think about such things? Taking away a person's free will? They were your squad mates. You shared quarters, trained side by side."

Eren felt strangely like he'd been waiting for these words, he was in an advanced state of readiness for them, so much so that they didn't cause even a ripple of emotion to stir in him. He felt nothing at all. 

_Small fry._

"They're just titans to me."

Erwin returned his look, his gaze open, thoughtful. "So. You want me to mount another expedition."

The bluntness of this did take Eren off-guard. But of course a man like Erwin already knew his mind.

"My basement…in Shiganshina," Eren said. "You believed me, that there were answers there. With my ability to control the titans, there won't be any more lives lost. Ever since the battle, I've known what I have to do. Now that I can control them…mankind doesn't have to go on suffering and cowering as we have been doing." Eren felt breathless with the thoughts in his mind, he felt pinned in place with too much energy crackling inside. "We can destroy them. We can wipe them out."

"And if you can't control them?"

Eren tried to rein himself in. "It says in—in Lieutenant Zoë's reports, sir…"

Erwin drew in a slow breath, leaning back in his seat. 

"It's clear you can control Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Huber, to a degree. That's something different from directing whole hordes of titans." 

"I did it during the battle, sir. I know I lost focus at the end, but I think it was just the circumstances, after that fight, needing to heal—"

"I do very much want to know what discoveries your father made," Erwin said gravely. "But until we can be sure of the risks, mankind stands to lose too much by allowing you to venture beyond the wall. With your abilities so uncertain, you could lose control and become stranded in a sea of titans. I'd urge you to think where mankind would be if such a thing were to happen." 

Eren's heart sank. The prospect of more sessions spent in the claustrophobic underground of the city, more ineffectual interrogations while Hanji took notes—

"Don't be too dispirited," Erwin said. "Of the titans which mysteriously appeared with the Beast-type titan inside our walls…six were successfully captured. They're being held at the headquarters in Aletheia. You'll accompany Hanji, you'll test your abilities on these specimens. I will journey after you as soon as I'm able, and I don't mean to come alone. If you can successfully demonstrate to me and Generalissimo Zacklay that you can command the titans under controlled conditions, we will be in a better position to plan our next move."

"That's all I have to do?" Eren said, forgetting himself. He snapped hastily to attention. "Thank you, Commander, sir! I won't let you down, sir!"

Levi clicked his tongue.

"You're awfully eager to forget about the toys you have already." He propped his elbow up on the arm of the bench, touching his fingers to his temple. "They can be quite troublesome left to their own devices, as I recall."

*

The rain beat down the morning they were to set out, and the loading of supplies onto the wagons and the readying of the horses was a slow, unpleasant business for their small party in the early hours.

Mikasa and Armin had come to see Eren off. 

The three of them huddled together in the sheltered porch of the guardroom saying their goodbyes, and Eren told them again he didn't think they'd be parted for long.

"Just be careful," Armin said as Eren climbed up into the wagon.

Reiner was in the same spot where Eren had left him, seated in the wagon, bound at the hands and ankles, his face hidden by a dripping cloak hood.

"Go in," Eren called down to his friends. "No need to get rained on." He was looking at Mikasa, who had said barely three words to him all morning. He understood her silences well enough, and secretly, selfishly, he was pleased that his going would make her a little unhappy.

A piping whistle sounded from the men on horseback at the head of the train and all round the courtyard there came shouts and the bang of wooden gates being closed up on the wagons and the creak of wheels against the cobblestone as the horses shifted restlessly in their harnesses.

At the last moment, Hanji came clambering up into the wagon, her wet boots squeaking on the oilskins that had been tied down over the supply crates. She landed heavily on the narrow bench next to Eren, bumping her shoulder into his companionably.

"Looks like we're all set!"

The whistle from the front sounded again, piping twice in quick succession, and the train began to move off.

"Take care, Eren!" Armin called, waving up to him.

"You won't even notice I'm gone." Eren twisted around to look back as the wagon drew off. He shook his head ruefully as he saw that Mikasa had come out from the porch and stood watching him go, careless of the rain.

He settled back in his seat as they drew under the garrison's great stone archway, and for the moment they were out of the rain. Looking ahead in the dimness, Eren noticed that Reiner was staring back the way they'd come, a remote look in his grey eyes.

"You look pretty miserable for someone who just got out of a dungeon," Eren said over the clatter of the horses and the wagons.

"We're leaving Bertholdt in safe hands, you can rest assured," Hanji said, busy looking through her supply pack. "I'm delighted with his improvement. He's getting his strength back every day."

Eren snorted, almost laughed, at the faintly embarrassed look that crossed Reiner's face.

"Nobody cares if you're glad to get out, you know," he said. "You don't have to put on a show like you're all torn up about ditching Bertholdt back there. Who are you trying to impress?" 

Reiner said nothing. He tucked his chin down, holding his hands awkwardly in front of him. The continuous motion of the wagon jostled him and the restraints prevented him from comfortably bracing himself. 

"I think I prefer the way Annie did things," Eren said. "At least she never pretended like she actually cared about anyone other than herself. And she never pretended to be weak, either."

*

[Missing Scene - Eren's experiments with controlling the captured titans repeatedly fail]

*

He'd picked up a birch switch and he swung it vicariously as he walked, whipping down oat grass stalks and the heads of wildflowers in a shining spray of dew droplets.

His frustration was enough that his eyes were stinging and damp and he went along gracelessly, tripping now and then on stones along the rough path.

He veered off to sit on a log, and it was while he sat there that he saw the night guards making their way back to the castle, joking among themselves in low voices, their long spears slung on their shoulders.

He crouched a little so he wouldn't be seen, and wouldn't have to face them. He rubbed his eyes angrily in the crook of his elbow and kept his head buried there until the sounds of their voices and the thump of their footsteps grew distant.

The birds were calling in the trees. Eren sat curled in place, the switch still gripped in his left hand, and he tried to let his mind run clear and think of nothing.

Someone was coming.

He lifted his head, looking up the path, and saw it was Hanji. She also carried a long spear, but in her free hand she had a steaming bowl wrapped in a cloth.

Foul-tempered as he was, Eren felt shamefaced hiding there. He dropped the switch and rose to his feet and stepped out onto the path.

"Ah! Good morning," Hanji called cheerfully. If she thought it strange that Eren had appeared so suddenly, she said nothing about it. "Here, get that down."

She handed him the bowl which held a large portion of coarse porridge from the kitchens, and kept walking.

"You must be cold. Maki told me you started early again."

Eren stood blinking in confusion for a moment, then jogged to catch Hanji up.

"Lots to do today. You're going to need your energy. Did you have time to look over my initial notes on individual characteristics?"

"Uh—" Eren finished swallowing a warm mouthful of oats. "Actually, I—"

"Never mind," Hanji said briskly. "Hands-on interaction is best for getting a sense of the individual. We'll do some work with the bigger boys today." She gripped the spear handle tightly with both hands and sighed, her expression turning dreamy. "This might be my favorite part. That uncertain time at the beginning of getting to know each other."

"Do you think—" Eren cleared his throat. "Do you think I'm going to get this sorted by the time Commander Erwin comes?"

Hanji didn't answer immediately. They carried on down the path and Eren ate his porridge, and after a bit, Hanji said,

"If it happens by then, it happens by then. If not by then…well, we'll see. What matters is I need you to be useful now. So start thinking about the work we're doing here, today, and stop letting all that eat away at you."

They'd come down the slope and arrived at a small stream and Eren squatted on his heels and rinsed the empty porridge bowl clean. 

Through the line of fir trees ahead the clearing could be seen, and broken up between the trees, bits of the giant pale bodies of the monsters that were waiting.

"Is your head together?" Hanji said, her gaze on him steady, measuring.

Eren got to his feet. He shook off the bowl. He felt better for having eaten the hot food, and the heaviness that had been on him earlier was for the moment pushed away. 

He looked to the trees, squinting against the sunlight, then nodded.

"Good man," Hanji said.

*

Every day he tried to impose his will on the titans. He spent an hour trying to make the twelve-meter class—the great brute who Hanji called Nøcken—lift his finger. He'd had no success. 

He'd tried making them blink their eyes on command, move their ghastly rubbery lips behind the bars of their head cages. He'd tried when he was in a fury, he'd tried when he was calm. Nothing was working.

The energy of the monsters' minds was formless and inert, slopped like water when Eren reached to seize a hold of it.

Hanji took him out a few of times into the meadow with Reiner and she had Eren practice on him, move him like a puppet, make him jump without a word, stand on one foot, toss a stone, clap his hands.

"We already know this," Eren had said finally in exasperation at the end of one session, as the long afternoon was slipping away into evening.

Reiner was sitting in the grass with Hanji crouched next to him. He was leaning stiffly away from her, his steaming hand curled to his chest.

"Resistance period is getting much shorter," Hanji said. She was trying to get a look at Reiner's hand with the hunting knife in it. "Body isn't rejecting foreign object, skin tissue failing to knit…" She wrote a note in her book balanced on her knee.

"Just the same thing over and over," Eren muttered, sitting down heavily. It was humid and he was sweating a little. He looked over at where Hanji's pack was lying and wondered if there was anything left in the waterskin.

"Can he hold up his hand?" Hanji mimed what she wanted distractedly, putting her hand out in front of her.

Eren barley had to look at Reiner and he did it, showing Hanji his hand with the knife through it, blood clotted sticky around the slippery blade where he'd sunk it into his palm. The wound was steaming like water on a low boil.

"I know," Hanji said in a low voice to Reiner as she took hold of his wrist carefully and turned the hand this way and that. "Almost done."

*

[Missing Scene - Armin arrives at the castle with a troupe of scouts. They've moved Bertholdt out of the city on Erwin's orders. Bertholdt is mute]

*

"I did it once, I can do it again. I just need to remember how."

"What if you can't?"

Eren shoved off from the log they were sitting on. He stepped through the thick grass and then reached up and snapped off a twig from a low-hanging tree branch. 

"I thought you were going to make me feel better, not worse," he said, breaking the twig up in his hands, the damp bark flaking on his fingers.

"You're looking at this the wrong way, that's all I'm saying." Armin drew his legs up so he was sitting cross-legged on the log, the evening sky a clear, deepening blue through the trees behind him. "You're trying to take all of this on your own shoulders, solve all of humanity's problems in the space of a few days."

"Erwin sent me here so I could have a chance to prove myself. He'll come in two days with the Generalissimo. What have I got to show them?" Eren wiped off his hands angrily on his breeches. "Nothing."

"I don't think he's expecting you to have figured out how to command an army of titans for him."

"What other way is there?" Eren said, his voice rising. "How else are we supposed to make any progress? Learn anything? How many more people will die before we can know anything?"

He turned so that his back was to Armin. He stared into the trees. There was nowhere to direct his anger, and it wasn't fair to take it out on Armin.

"Erwin wouldn't pin all his hope on a single option," Armin said quietly from behind. "He won't be betting everything on that power. There are other ways of getting information." 

"Like what?"

"Bertholdt and Reiner could still—"

"Them?" Eren swung around. "They're useless. And they want us all dead. That's all they've ever wanted. They'd rather die than help humanity."

"Nonetheless." Armin gazed at him solemnly. "They're valuable."

"They're titans," Eren said hotly. "Actually, worse than titans." 

"Is that what you're going to say if they call on you at the trial?"

Eren frowned. "What trial?"

"The trial for the three of them. The date's been set. What are you going to say if you're called on to give your opinion?"

"Why would they care what I think? It wasn't so long ago I was the one on trial."

"There've been calls for public executions. Is that what you want?"

Eren shrugged.

"Do you want revenge?" Armin said.

"Don't you?" Eren shot back.

"I know my feelings are less important than keeping those three alive. I know we need them."

Eren didn't say anything for several seconds. He kicked at a lump of root sticking up from the ground. He stepped onto it and balanced on one foot and then lost his balance and stepped off again.

"I don't care either way," he said resolutely. "I don't want to waste any more time thinking about those assholes. I want to get the answers my father left me. I want to find a way home—"

"I think you'd let Bertholdt and Reiner die because you hate them," Armin broke in, his voice determined.

Eren stilled. He lifted his head slowly and regarded his friend. 

"Shouldn't I hate them?" he said in a low voice. "Who wouldn't hate them? For what they've done?"

"I think they could be reasoned with."

"Reasoned with," Eren echoed. "They're not human."

Armin said nothing. He sat with his hands resting on his knees, his eyes steady on Eren, barely even blinking.

"It makes me sick even being near them," Eren said. "Hanji's been making me do all these tests with Reiner. I hate it. That look he puts on."

"What look?"

"You saw. The way he pretends. He always used to do that. You remember. Acting like he was such a good guy. He was always giving himself the most work, putting himself at most risk for his team whenever we did exercises—that was the way he wanted it to look, like he was some hero just doing his job. He was never in any danger like the rest of us. It was all a load of shit. He wanted us to think he cared about others before himself. You saw, in there—with Bertholdt. Putting on a show so we'll think he's a good person. All he cares about is himself. All he ever does, he does for himself. He's just like Annie, only worse, because he tries to lie about it. Looking at him makes me want to fucking puke."

Eren's voice had started to shake slightly with rage. He swallowed. He took a moment to master himself again, and then he felt depleted, as if he'd allowed some strength to be taken out of him, and he was annoyed with himself for his lack of control. 

"It doesn't even matter," he said. "This is just what they want us to do—waste time thinking about them. They want to distract us from what's really important."

"I don't think you believe all that, about him and Bertholdt," Armin said.

"Come on, you're not actually taken in by it, are you?" Eren said.

Armin reached a hand down to his ankle and fiddled with the top of his boot, pulled a little at the bootlaces.

"I was paired up with Reiner for a training exercise one time. We were supposed to be working in pairs with the maneuver gear in the woods. I got out there and one of my grapples had worn out. I had to go back and replace it. When I got back, Reiner wasn't there. I found him up on the sandstone rocks. He was looking at something below, by the stream. He didn't see me at first." 

Armin twisted the bootlace round his finger.

"I looked to see what he was looking at. It was Annie and Bertholdt. They'd been put together. He was helping her with her gear. You know Annie never liked anyone doing anything for her. She looked just the same way she always did. Bertholdt was doing the buckle on her back. Well Reiner was watching them—" Armin broke off. He darted a quick look up at Eren.

"So?"

"It was just the look on his face."

"What about it?" Eren said impatiently.

"He thought no one could see him. It was just a look like…" Armin pressed his lips together. "A heartsick look."

"Heartsick."

"Like when you love someone," Armin said. "At first I thought it was Annie. Because of Annie? But it wasn't. When Bertholdt went to get his stuff… Reiner was watching _him_. It wasn't Annie." Armin said this with certainty, and he glanced at Eren again as if to see that he was following. "I was just going to go back and wait for him, I didn't want to—embarrass him. But I wasn't quiet enough and he turned around and saw me. I could tell he knew I'd seen him looking. I went and waited for him. He came down and we didn't say anything about it."

Eren put his hands into his pockets, silent.

Armin shifted restlessly where he sat. "I'm telling you all that because I just think…it changes things. If you love someone, things are different."

"You think Reiner's got some crush on Bertholdt."

"You don't have to say it like that."

"Are you trying to make me feel bad for them?"

"No." Armin shook his head. "No. But people behave differently when they've got something to lose."

Eren looked aside. It was getting dark. There were mushrooms on the bark of the trees around them, white and glowing almost as the sky grew darker. Eren was cold now, without his jacket. He could smell wood smoke on the air, drifting from the castle.

"What are you thinking?" Armin said.

"That I've only got two days left."

"I meant about the rest."

"I don't care about the rest," Eren said. "I really don't give a shit."

*

[Evening of Erwin's visit]

Eren's knuckles were steaming. His fingers were black with blood.

He found the bed and sat down heavily and held his hand up close to his face so he could see as he picked out the bits of glass.

He cradled his elbow as he watched his hand heal, then he wiped the blood off on his trousers. It wasn't a good job, he really ought to wash the skin clean.

The bits of the mirror glittered on the floor. It was an old cheval mirror with a frame and a stand made of very dark wooden, and it had been standing in the corner of Eren's bed chamber since he'd arrived at the castle. The face of the glass had been spotted and streaked with age, but still it was finer than anything they'd ever had in the house when Eren was growing up, asides from his father's medical equipment.

It was late, but Eren was still fully-dressed, he hadn't even taken his boots off.

He left the chamber, he went out into the passage where it was cold enough that his breath showed on the air. 

He passed in front of the tall windows, through the light of the waning moon that stretched slanted across the stone flagons.

There were two men stationed at the entrance to the bailey. They only nodded as he passed. These past weeks, it wasn't unusual for Eren to be going about late doing Hanji's business, fetching her things, conveying messages, helping with the work that was carried out after the sun went down.

*

He had his story ready for the guard. 

Eren stood in the lamplight and explained why Hanji had sent him. The guard had no cause for suspicion. He took Eren down the stairs. He unbolted the door up. He held up the lamp for Eren to see.

The dark shapes on the floor cringed away from the sudden light.

They'd been asleep. They'd pushed their pallets together against the wall and they had the dark blankets over them. It was very cold down here.

"Get up," Eren said. "Let's go."

Reiner had his arm up in front of his eyes.

"What is it?" he said in a rough voice.

Eren didn't answer. He waited while they moved clumsily and pulled on their boots and then it was easy to set his will on them and take them up the stairs.

Outside, he spoke again to the guard, to make it all seem ordinary. Then he led the prisoners out of the castle and into the forest. 

They had no light, but it was light enough with the moon in the clear sky. 

As soon as they were out of sight of the castle, he turned off the path and struck off into the wild forest.

"Where are we going?" Reiner said, after the small spots of light from the windows of the castle had fallen out of view between the trees. This was not the way to the meadow, and that was the only place outside of the dungeon that Reiner knew.

"Eren?" he said.

 _Shut up,_ Eren thought.

After that they walked in silence for a long time.

Their footfalls thumped on the ground that was packed with roots, thick with ferns and pine needles.

Eren didn't allow himself to think as he pressed on, plunging them deeper and deeper into the forest. He let the jolt up his leg of each step carrying him onwards and the unchanging bowl of the stars overhead blank his mind.

They walked for a long time, until the vastness of the forest was palpable, stretching out around them, and the trees and ferns were thick.

They came up a rise of land that then gave way to a series of rocky ledges, a sort of a stair, and though not very steep, the shelves of rock were uneven and slippery with moss and mud, and with only the moon to see by, it would be slow going to get down.

Eren halted them at the uppermost lip and stood, breathing slightly uneven from the walk up. He didn't deliberate long. He turned to the two dark shapes and gestured for Bertholdt to go first.

The tall boy passed him and squatted down, braced himself with one hand and put one leg over the side, then the other, and turning as he did so, his face white, eyes large and dark peering up at them for a moment before he lowered himself down.

Eren was preoccupied watching this, so he wasn't expecting it when Reiner suddenly grabbed his arm. He jerked, expecting an attack, but no blow came. Reiner was standing very close, looming over him, Eren was aware all at once of the broadness of his shoulders, the power of him. Abruptly, Eren felt his age, that he was the youngest of the three of them.

"What are you planning to do?" Reiner said, the grip of his fingers hard around Eren's upper arm. It occurred to Eren that he'd left off of his earlier command, it had faded without him noticing, so that now Reiner could speak.

He shook free of Reiner's grip, forced Reiner's hand to go slack and drop away to his side.

"Go on," Eren said.

Reiner didn't move right away. He stayed close, frowning as he studied Eren's face. Eren didn't like his look. He pushed with a thought and Reiner's body went, shuffled a step back reluctantly, then Reiner crouched and lowered himself over the edge of the rock. 

Eren went last.

They reached the bottom of the steps. 

Ahead of them in the moonlight was a stretch of shrub land, and then silver birches took up once more and the forest rose in a dark mass.

Eren wanted the trees—here it was too bare.

A creeping eerie sensation came over Eren as he drew the other two on, a feeling that they were being watched from somewhere out in the dark. It was very still. There was thin frost on the gorse and heather, and everything glistening grey or in the shadow, black.

Eren went quickly now, a strange urgency on him to get out of this open place. What he felt in fact was an urgency to be alone, and the breathing and scuff of footsteps he heard behind him made him go faster. For a moment he had a sort of dread of the two following him, a horror of them. It was as if the three of them were bound by a chain together and Eren wasn't leading the way at all.

He half-ran up the bank, grabbing handfuls of grass to haul himself up, and then he was under the trees. He crouched down between silver birches and made himself small while the other two came climbing more slowly after. Then they'd caught him up and they stopped as well and waited. 

Eren looked at them, standing tall, strong, they could have been two grown men in the dark. They stood watching him, their breath spilling white into the air, shoulders lifting and falling.

"Well," Reiner said, opening his hands, "what now?"

Eren stood up.

"I don't think they're ever going to get round to punishing you. Maybe some people can live with it. Know what you two did and still just keep feeding and protecting you. They're happy to keep you locked away safe until they can figure out how to squeeze something out of you. So far I've been doing what I'm told." He clenched his fists at his sides. "But you two know I was never very good with being patient."

"They won't let you kill us," Reiner said. He'd taken a couple of steps forward so that he was in front of Bertholdt, the same as he'd been the day of Bertholdt's arrival.

"There's nobody here," Eren said.

Reiner drew himself up straighter, lifting his chin. "That's true. And it's not like you've never killed before."

"Right." _—the resistance of flesh and muscle as the child's hand pushed the blade into the man's throat, beneath the jawbone—_ "I kill monsters."

Reiner's eyes were steady on him. "Only ever monsters?"

"I never brought about the massacre of thousands of innocent people, if that's what you're asking." Eren's voice came even, betraying little of the naked rage that was rising in him.

"No. But some things you don't remember so well," Reiner said. "Isn't that so?"

Bertholdt put his hand on Reiner's arm and Reiner shrugged him off just as quickly.

"Do you think you can be their savior, Eren? You believe you can represent them? You don't know what you are. You don't know what it means."

"Don't try and play games with me again," Eren ground out.

"You know what we do when we transform?" White billowing breath rolled from Reiner's mouth as he spoke. "The way it feels? In that moment before you change? Do you know what you had to do? Do you know what you traded, in order to—" He broke off, his jaws clamping shut, his eyes narrowing in a grimace.

Bertholdt had a hard grip on Reiner's arm above the elbow. He grabbed for the front of Reiner's shirt and yanked forcibly, trying to get Reiner to meet his eye.

"What was it Annie used to say?" Eren said. " 'This piece of shit world'? I was thinking tonight. It makes sense, if this is such a piece of shit world, that people like _you_ can get to live with hope, after you took hope away from everybody else. I don't think it's fair, do you?"

Eren gazed at Reiner, who was silent, watching him, very still. 

"I bet you were thinking maybe—maybe you could just sit in some dungeon and be left in peace? And keep your secrets until you died of old age. I bet you had—some small feeling of hope. You were thinking, if you have to live in a cage, at least you're not alone." Eren slanted a look at Bertholdt.

"I bet you could endure just about anything, couldn't you, Reiner," he went on quietly. "I thought you were lying. The way you're always trying to protect him, just like you lied playing the great soldier pretending to protect the rest of us. But now I wonder if this one thing isn't a lie. What would you do if you couldn't protect that person. What would you do if you were in fact totally helpless. I think I'd like to make you feel that."

"We can't tell you anything," Reiner said, and his voice low and urgent. "You have to realise that by now. It's not possible."

"If there's something you want to tell him," Eren said flatly, "I'll give you the chance to do it now before we start this."

Reiner's expression froze. He seemed for a moment not to breathe even. A pause, and then he said,

"Whatever you're thinking of doing, this won't get you the information you want—"

"You might later regret not making better use of this opportunity."

There was something hunted in Reiner's look now. 

"What are you going to do?" he said.

"I'm going to take something away from you."

Bertholdt glanced between Reiner and Eren uncertainly.

"Take it out on me, if you want to," Reiner said. "But let it be just me—"

"You really are a coward if that's still all you'll say, even when I'm giving you a chance."

Reiner looked at Bertholdt at last, his lips parted, and he shook his head very slightly and seemed about to plead with him. But time slipped away and Bertholdt stared back at him frowning, unknowing, and in the end Reiner said nothing.

"Fine," Eren muttered. He pointed at the ground at Reiner's feet. "Kneel there."

Reiner dropped his head. He obeyed.

Eren pointed at Bertholdt. He knew what he wanted done, but the words wouldn't come easy. He put his will to it instead, looking Bertholdt over, trying to make him a collection of parts, a machine which Eren could move with his mind.

Bertholdt's hands lifted with a spasm and went to the collar of his shirt.

"What are you doing?" Reiner said sharply.

Bertholdt opened the buttons down his front with clumsy slowness, and Eren had to watch the struggling movement of his fingers so that he could keep the compulsion working strong. He'd had some practice with Reiner, doing fine things like this, with no spoken command, but it took concentration.

"What are you doing, Eren," Reiner said, louder.

Bertholdt pushed the sleeves of his shirt down his arms—he wore no undershirt, and neither he nor Reiner had a jacket, so losing his shirt he was left with his top half naked. His ribs showed a little as he shifted, crossing his arms to cover himself.

Eren looked aside for a moment to gather himself, then he fixed his gaze again on Bertholdt's hands and he held out his own hand, because that had always helped him to focus.

Bertholdt took hold of his belt and started working it loose.

"Stop this," Reiner said.

" _Your boots,_ " Eren said, his voice slightly hoarse.

Bertholdt left his trousers hanging open and he bent with a faltering motion, like an old man with stiff joints, his trousers began to fall so he had to hold them in one hand while he pulled his boots open, one and then the other, and toed them off. Then he was barefoot in the brittle grass.

"What the hell are you doing this for?" Reiner said.

Eren looked away, breathless, a little sick. "Shut up."

"Have you lost your mind?"

Eren's eyes snapped to the older boy, kneeling. "I said _shut the fuck up._ " 

Reiner stared at Eren uncomprehendingly. He began to look towards Bertholdt, but then he aborted the impulse, tucked his chin down, because like Eren, he wouldn't look at Bertholdt just then, who had his shoulders hunched, was trying to make himself smaller though he was so tall, and held his trousers up with his hands.

"We're going to see this through." Eren swallowed a couple of times to try and draw spit into his dry mouth. "We've started now." He looked at Bertholdt's empty boots, withered leather, lying collapsed on the ground.

" _Get up now,_ " Eren said, his voice gone reedy.

Reiner pushed to his feet, unsure, because Eren hadn't worked the command properly, and Eren knew it. For a beat nobody moved.

"You know what has to happen," Eren said. "You don't need to act so stupid."

The muscles across Reiner's shoulders and down his arms bunched and quivered like a bull's. He seemed frighteningly powerful, poised on the edge of some explosive action, but his feet stayed planted, like one in a trance as Eren commanded Bertholdt first to kneel, and then to lie flat on his front on the cold ground.

A bluish shadow fell along the curve of Bertholdt's spine, the bones of his shoulder blades standing out harshly. He was broad at the shoulders, narrower at the waist. He lay with his arms under him, on his elbows, to keep his chest off the ground, and his dark head was slung low between his shoulders.

Commanded, Reiner undid his belt. He worked the tongue through the buckle with his blunt fingers, and Eren thought of the deft, patient way that Reiner had always had with his horse, the methodical careful motions of his hands as he'd done the work of grooming the animal, the easy strength in his arm as he swung the saddle up.

Reiner stared at the boy lying prone in the grass as his feet carried him where Eren wanted, to stand over Bertholdt. He dropped to one knee. His breath seethed between his teeth.

Eren was at their backs, only had to watch the movement of Reiner's arm, the shift of his shoulders beneath his shirt, and that was good, he wouldn't have to see— 

He wanted to be further away. If he could have squeezed his eyes shut, he would have, and yet at the same time he was riveted, gruesomely fixated, barely blinking, like a spell was on him as well. He told himself if he did the smallest thing, took a single step back, or tried to look elsewhere, then he'd never be able to get here again, repeating this would be impossible.

"You have to pay some price," he muttered, "You have to do it. Even if there's no punishment that would be enough—for what you two did—"

_Shower of rubble raining from the sky, brick work shattered and collapsing, adult bodies colliding with him and screams in the air as he ran through the chaos— Bertholdt sitting hunched on the bed with his arms wrapped around his knees, talking in a low voice about the day the titans came to his village— His mother's face—his mother—_

Through the gap of Reiner's arm he could see naked skin, the base of the spine, the buttocks, because he'd made Reiner pull Bertholdt's loose trousers down partly, before he'd lost his grip on the command in a panic. His weakness disgusted him. 

He caught a glimpse of Reiner's face in profile, Reiner about to turn his head, look back at him. He didn't want to see the look in Reiner's eyes. And like that, his will closed on Reiner, a trap snapping shut. 

Reiner bent again to his task. His hands dragged Bertholdt's trousers down, it was awkward to do, the ground under Bertholdt was uneven, and Bertholdt was posed stiff as a board. The trousers ended up bunched around Bertholdt's thighs.

"Lay on him," Eren said. "Don't you know what to do?" He was trying to be jeering, but to his own ears his voice sounded shrill and childish.

_Thomas hadn't known he was dead, he still had his sword in his hand, he was squirming gently in the titan's mouth, he'd had such a look of disbelief, staring down in confusion at his torso and where the rest of him should be, staring at the teeth as big as his hands sunk into his belly—_

Revulsion washed over Eren as he realised suddenly what he'd neglected. He read it in the rigid set of Reiner's shoulders.

"Make yourself ready— Go into him!" 

The bone and muscle along Reiner's arm shifted in the strange silver light. At the beginning, when they'd had Reiner in the underground city, he'd had some ability to resist orders, at least a little, but they'd taken that away from him over the course of their time at the castle, any edge there'd been was easily worn off of him, so that now he had no means of resisting whatever thing was in Eren's mind.

Bertholdt's bare feet moved restlessly, his toes curling in the grass and mud. 

Even keeping their faces and bodies turned away from him, Eren found it loathsome to watch.

"Just get on with it!"

Reiner's hand ceased working, he put that hand on Bertholdt, tried kneeling over him and pitched clumsily before catching himself, his breath rattling out of him. He settled up over Bertholdt's legs, fumbling, still with his clothes on, the seat of his trousers hanging loose.

He put his shaking hand to his mouth and spat into his fingers, and this Eren found revolting and strange, this wasn't a part of the vague picture in his mind, and he stared with wide eyes as Reiner spread the soft flesh of the buttocks with one hand, drew open the vulnerable cleft, put his slippery fingers there.

"What—what are you doing?" Eren spluttered. "Just take him!"

A great shudder went through Reiner.

His body obeyed.

He moved forward a little on his knees, so he was really over the other boy. He kept one hand on Bertholdt and he seemed to stop, motionless, at least that was how it looked to Eren, but he was forcing his way inside. Bertholdt began to lurch and strain all at once, his legs trying to kick, a ghastly hoarse yell breaking from his throat.

Eren's imagined it like clamping hands on a squirming beast and holding it down, that was how he forced Bertholdt to stillness, and while Eren did this, Reiner fell forward onto him, and that way seated himself brutishly in him with a dazed flex of his limbs, he lay on the other boy and heaved several wet breaths and then began to struggle against him, rolling his hips with purpose as one riding a horse. His trousers came down with the movement, his shirttail hardly covering his buttocks, the exposure shameful, obscene, the globes of the buttocks bunching and easing rhythmically with their work.

A choked miserable cry split the silence. Bertholdt's left hand scrabbled and raked uselessly at the earth, searching for purchase. It was in vain. He couldn't fight what was happening.

Reiner was breathing gustily, a sob in his breath. He'd braced himself up on his hands, his head falling down, his lower body rutted, repeatedly forcing the penetration, sinking home with each artless labored ram of his hips, jolting Bertholdt's frame, crushing him against the earth, bearing down on him again and again.

The noise of it did Eren in. Wet sucking sound, a primal kissing slap of flesh, and the repeated, uncontrollable heaving indrawn breath that was wet as well, the noise of a man weeping, a horrible noise Eren knew from battle, when men scream and weep openly.

He staggered, held his knees and bent and vomited.

His vision was blurred as he looked up, his eyes streaming.

"Just finish!" he shouted thickly. "For f-fuck's sake…"

Reiner did, instantly, shuddering to an end, and Eren realised—it could have ended before, he could have had it end any time before and he hadn't.

Reiner crawled off of Bertholdt on hands and knees.

Down the seam of Bertholdt's body, he was glistening darkly, and between his thighs. The bottom of Reiner's shirt too had blood on it, and his spent cock, hanging out of his trousers. Reiner lay down on his back and hid his face behind his hands.

Bertholdt's shaking hand clawed for his trousers, he tried quickly to cover himself, his face hidden away, crushed against the earth still.

Standing straight, Eren pushed both his hands through his hair, a phlegmy gurgling cry in the back of his throat, the tone of it sliding upwards, a noise like a child would make.

"What the fuck," he moaned through his teeth. The figures that lay on the ground were smeared through his tears, wavering demons coming up out of the earth maybe, just a terrible nightmare. They lay still. They weren't coming for him, but he turned and ran, like a child that thinks the demon will chase right at his heels the moment he turns his back.

*


End file.
